


drop me down in your ground

by doubtthestars



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Demons, M/M, Sleep Paralysis, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 15:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17164958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: There are three basic rules to dealing with demons.





	1. ūnus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raumdeuter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter/gifts).



> bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.
> 
> this is a belated bday present/forfeit of a bet/belated christmas present that will hopefully be finished by the new year...

Everything started with the pfennigs. 

Miroslav had seen the boys in his sunday school fawn over this or that for many years. The attention span of young minds never seemed to focus for very long on the teachings of the scriptures, no matter what Miroslav tried. The girls at least managed to break the rules less often. 

“Put it away, unless you want me to confiscate your toy, Marc.” The group quickly scattered back to their seats at his approach. Marc pouted but dutifully put his fist in his pocket and the lesson on the parable of the sower continued without another interruption. 

The next week, it takes even longer to get the class settled. Paul and Marc at the center of the commotion. Miroslav decides that patience is the best way to handle the class and only repeats his warning before writing on the blackboard. 

It is when Hanna gets in a tussle with Peter that Miroslav finds out what exactly what has been holding the parish children captive with excitement.

“Why did you kick Peter?” Hanna was a stubborn little thing at the best of times, and this time was no different as she crossed her arms and scowled at the boy holding his shin. 

“He called me a liar. I got my shinies same as the boys but Peter doesn’t believe me.” Her voice wobbled in the direction of a crying tantrum which pulled a warning sniff from Peter who also looked like he was ready to cry. Miroslav sighed.

“You both need to apologize and I’m going to have to talk to your parents.” No amount of whining or pleading would deter Miroslav. 

“Oh Father Klose, I’m so sorry for the trouble. The kids have been obsessed with these pfennigs from the park. There’s a man who helps them find buried treasure. It’s sweet of him to do. He lets them keep what they find. Thomas must spend hours hiding the pfennigs in the park for the kids.” She looks a little besotted in an unusual manner as Miroslav had known her since before she had gotten married in his church and had never strayed from David. He doesn’t comment beyond the usual reprimands of children being children and if she could see to it that Hanna doesn’t resort to kicking first and crying foul later.

The third time the pfennigs appear, he gets a good look at them. Azra had been showing them off triumphantly to the class and Miroslav blinks harshly at the overhead lights reflecting an oily unnatural sheen until he blinks again and sees an ordinary ten pfennig coin. 

“May I see that coin again?” He asks after class. Azra hesitates but dutifully pulls it out of her pocket, cradling it in her palm like some precious jewel. His skin itches as he flips it over carefully. It’s been tainted by something not of this world. He looks closely at the fish caught in mid-leap, drowning in air forever. 

The fish stares back in fear. 

-

He finds the man on the football field near the net that had seen better days. The smell of sulfur was masked by the scent of fresh grass and a briney odor that confused Miroslav before it went mute and nothing was out of place. An ordinary man on an ordinary day.

“Thomas, I presume.” There is a cold sweat gathering at the nape of his neck. He adjusts his collar self-consciously. Oddly shining eyes track the movement before they fall back to his face blue-green. Miroslav had encountered demons before but never ones who hid out in the open like this one. A wiry frame with a prominent nose and a crooked slash of a mouth, Thomas looked like any other man. If not for his training in Rome and the pfennigs, Miro wouldn’t have picked him out of a crowd as anything less than ordinary.

“Priest,” the single word flashes teeth. His mouth twists into a smile that shows sharp little canines. He doesn’t seem perturbed or threatened by the presence of a holy man. There is none of the bravado of a typical demonic entity inhabiting a mortal body. 

“What do you want with the children?” Miroslav gets straight to the point. The demon shrugs carelessly. 

“It was just a bit of fun to pass the time. They are so easily led to squabble and mischief.” Nothing flickers out of place. It is unsettling. Miro can only feel the wrongness deep in his gut.

“What are you?” He asks, not expecting an answer but a reaction. Thomas chuckles. 

“Did you expect something outwardly wicked, Priest? A pied piper to lead the children off a cliff?” His eyes light up silver-white, mirth outlining his mouth grotesquely before settling back to normal. 

“Or a wraith ready to devour souls?” He continues to mock, looking as delighted as a man with a sweeth tooth alighting on dessert. 

The shadow behind Thomas wavered like heat rising from pavement, elongating to include tail and horns. Miroslav raises his chin, having enough of his games. He could not exorcise the demon without finding out its true nature first. It was not a possession like he had ever seen. His countenance did not twist, nor did the mortal reach out to plead or fight. 

“Who is it you’re wearing?” Demons had no qualms about sharing details of their hosts, not like they guarded their own secrets. Miroslav could at least give some solace to a grieving family while staring down some beloved corpse.

“Oh this old thing?” He pulls at the skin of his arm unnaturally, before dismissing his worry for the poor soul that had once inhabited that flesh with a callous snort.

“It’s older than your grandfather, I bet. How old are _you_ , priest?” He tilts his head in question speculation clear in his eyes.

“Old enough to know better than to share such things with a demon. I am a man of the cloth that will protect his flock from evils such as yourself.” Thomas doesn’t stop smiling at the proclamation. He only nods in acquiescence.

“Yes, I can see that. You needn’t worry, my mission doesn’t lie with your flock.” His laughter lingers in the air as he disappears with a cold snap of wind. 

Miroslav stands frozen, sour brine still in his nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm extremely rusty and this is an extremely paltry treat but I hope it's enough of a taste to keep you intrigued. I admit I don't think I've ever written this ship for a full length fic so I'm still playing around with them considering this is an extreme AU so hold onto yer butts.


	2. duo

He sees him out of the corner of his eyes in many places. The demon is by the carrots and radishes at the market, or walking across the road from the chapel, prowling with his shadow reaching behind him thin as a razor. Always with a word or two to flash around as he departs or arrives. Miro’s only precaution is to make a reserve of holy water to have nearby.

It is not the demon he meets when he spends a chilly morning by the riverside. 

“A penny for your thoughts, priest.” The stranger speaks with the same irreverence Thomas does and the smell of sulphur wafts from him as obvious as a collar around his neck would be. Miro wonders more and more about their purpose. 

“Must you follow me in Thomas’ steed today?” The demon laughs hollowly, no enjoyment in the act as if he knew the cue but could not muster the proper affectation. It sent chills down Miro’s spine to hear. 

“Oh no, no. Curiosity has led me to cross your path. Thomas is so very fond of you. I thought it was time to meet. You may call me Robert.” He introduces himself.

“Such an ordinary name.” Miro says dryly, tiring of this pretense of politeness. He observes the stranger, finding something familiar in his features. A handsome face if not a shade too pale with dark hair and chiseled cheeks. He takes note of the lines on his forehead, finding them incongruous with his overall appearance and with a demon in general. 

“Miroslav Klose is an unusual combination on the other hand.” Robert hits back easily, like a cat swiping at a mouse. Miro falters a step before continuing on his path. If this demon knew his name, then surely Thomas did as well. It wouldn’t be difficult to find, asking around and Miroslav could not fault anyone for the mistake. 

“We settled here in my youth.” That was a safe and easy detail to forfeit. 

“And when did you decide on the path of becoming a righteous man?” Robert keeps his tone light. Miroslav looks up to the grey skies, not finding answers but feeling settled nonetheless. 

“It is a calling, to serve God is to serve mankind.” He turns down the alleyway, only hearing his own footsteps, but knowing Robert was still following him. The errand he had in mind is pushed aside calmly, and he redirects his feet to find the side streets he has memorized.

“Charity feeds nothing but the ego in the end.” Robert’s words slither in his ears, too close to be real. A trick he’s come across before. Miro doesn’t falter this time, even as the illusion baits him breathing down his neck. There is a vial of holy water attached to his keys, but he doesn’t reach for it. Instead he turns to see black film steal across the demon’s eyes. Wickedness could not be hidden for long in mortal flesh.

“Is that what you think?”

“It is what I know, Father.” He spits out the word like an oath.

“You were human once.” Miroslav is certain. His dialect was too precise, not raspy with the undercurrent of forced knowledge upon his tongue. 

“It did me no good being _good_. I am better suited to this, and I know what lies beyond your righteous desire, Miroslav Klose. Falling is terribly easy when you have secrets.” A fog descends on his thoughts, claws of burning ice digging into his mind, searching with a thousand eyes. Miroslav starts chanting under his breath, getting louder the more insistent the demon presses into locked doors and darkened corners. 

He snarls, backing away as the barrier between them flickers in substance. It startles Miro enough to file it away. 

“Leave, you’ve had your chance to tempt me and you’ve failed.” He stands resolute.

Robert sneers, “You’ve no idea what I want.” 

“I can guess, or I can banish you into the ether for the next ten years.” Miro states cooly, giving the demon one last chance to leave him alone. He didn’t need a name for the particular ritual he had in mind, especially now that he knew what he was. He was obvious, unlike Thomas.

Robert leaves with a growl more suited to a hellhound. Miroslav keeps walking, slowly releasing the tense coil in his gut. The fingernails of his right hand were crusted with blood from his palm. A last resort not taken. It was time to reach out for some guidance. He wound his way, seeming aimless to any onlooker before ducking behind a pharmacy to the steps of a cellar. His keys jingled as he found the right one. 

It had been a long time since he had to use this particular hideout. 

The air was stale in the cellar, a table and lamp taking the space front and center. Several cabinets stood in the shadows. He wasn’t here for those nor for the cot on the far side of the room, but for the phone on the wall. Old and unassuming, it hung as a relic to whatever the room’s purpose was before it was his. 

He dialed the number slowly from memory. It rang twice before he heard someone pick up.

“Miro?” The voice was filled with rich surprise. Miroslav took a moment to close his eyes in relief. 

“Antonio,” He returns warmly before composing himself, holding onto the memory of the demon rifling through his thoughts with no regard to readjust his frame of mind. He could not catch up, nor was this the line to use for social calls. Miroslav knew that and Antonio was also aware by virtue of the phone he held in his hands.

“I’ve got a problem. A lust demon was sent my way today, and there’s something else, something I’ve never seen before.” Miro admits with a touch of reluctance.

He hears Antonio sigh through the fuzz of white noise.

“Only you would manage to find trouble like this outside of Rome, my friend. I thought you were spending retirement in the middle of nowhere.” It’s a light tease in the face of peril. Miroslav grimaces at the reminder. He’d never wanted to thrust this sleepy town into anything of the sort he left behind. Mild-mannered and exorcist didn’t go hand in hand easily.

“Retirement only sticks if you’re dead and they’ve certainly found that I am not.” 

“Well, shall I get Buffon on the line as well?” Antonio sounds resigned. Miroslav nods before realizing Antonio couldn’t see him.

“If you think it wise.” Miroslav didn’t think Antonio had the answers to what or who Thomas was, but Gianluigi had been in the order for longer than most. He could have some helpful ideas if not a scent to trail about the strangeness occurring around him. Miroslav only hoped he had called in time to make a difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of filler but there's some clues! and more mystery. for some reason i've always wanted to see robert and miro interact so i fulfilled my wish in a twisted way. thomas will be back next chapter.


	3. trēs

Gianluigi hadn’t come up with any leads beyond faint suspicions and an offer to come surveil the situation himself. Miro had entertained the idea for a second before dismissing it with a chuckle. Gigi would stick out worse than any demon in town. He had promised them to be careful and to procure a pfennig for them to examine later. The children seemed less enamored by their coin collection, moving onto whatever new gadget or toy had caught their attention. 

Thomas is unusually absent, even with Miroslav looking out for him. It is only on the day he manages to mail out the scant evidence and notes he has that Thomas appears.

“Did you miss me?” The same affable grin and two-tone eyes bore into him. Miroslav shakes his head in the negative, hurrying his pace away from the post office. 

“Why would I ever do such a thing?” Thomas pouts before catching up easily, matching his stride. Miroslav doesn’t sigh, only flexing his hands at his sides in agitation once before he met the puzzle of a creature head on.

“Now priest, do I detect some anger? But never fear, such a curious mortal.” He whistles jauntily as a pack of teenagers move past them, half-giggling and half-lamenting over schoolwork. Miro takes the break in distance to breathe in air that wasn’t permeated by Thomas’ miasma of a scent. It was suffocating in heaviness. Whatever trick he had managed on him in the park no longer applied yet Miro still couldn’t figure it out as if his brain was trying to parse three different melodies playing at the same time; it was all scrambled when trying to follow one note over the other. 

“If it’s because of what happened with Robert while I was away, I do apologize for the trouble.” His contriteness made Miro’s hackles rise. Demons could feel no remorse. It would make their job infinitely harder if they did, and their lack of a soul did them no favors of finding empathy for mankind. 

“Do you? Strange, as it was you that led him to me.” Miroslav doesn’t pretend he isn’t frustrated, the clipped delivery waylaying any illusion of calm.

“I didn’t, Miro. He was under a certain impression and I corrected him on it. Robert is _new_ to this world. I **am** sorry that he upset you. I already told you I’m not after this town or your people.” Miroslav stops, pivoting to tug Thomas along with him. They had turned away from the main path and ended up in a narrow courtyard with small trees lining the edges. 

“If that were true, _Thomas_ ” It doesn’t escape him that this marks the first time they’ve addressed each other by name, “you wouldn’t still be here.” He lets go of his hideous sweater and takes a step back, suddenly aware of how inappropriate this would seem to an outsider. Sweat cools under his collar. He swallows down a fissure of anger and the voice in the back of his mind that says to keep pushing until he finds his answers.

Thomas blinks in wonder, still listing towards Miroslav as if frozen in the moment. His thin lips quirk up slowly, caught in something of a smirk before he shoves his hands in his pockets and straightens out.

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t be here. Robert thought so as well, but seeing as he’s met you, well I feel justified in what I had to do.” Miro turned cold, a shiver of wrongness made him hyper aware of the setting sun glinting off the toothy grin in front of him.

“You killed him.” Whatever passes for justice in this realm and the next could not touch whatever darkness spawned demons. He’d only heard of a second-hand account on a demon turning on its brethren and it was a gruesome thing to behold.

“I **made** him, priest. No one can fault me for keeping my own in line, nor breaking my toys.” Thomas keeps smiling like he made a particularly funny joke. 

Horror rose up in his gorge.

“Why?” Miro asks, choking on the word. Why on earth would he torture and take apart his own kin to the basest level for someone like him.

“He touched you.” Thomas states simply without any emotion behind it. 

“He didn’t.” Miro watches as a quicksilver flash of something crosses Thomas’ face before smoothing out into the nary-a-care facade he favored. 

“He did. He tried to sway your thoughts and look into your soul and he found enough to come back gloating to me like an errant child. Proud of himself for meddling, like I hadn’t spent my time away with the king of stupid boasts.” He scoffs, “Maybe Kalle could use him as an errand boy after he crawls out of the hole I banished him to.” Thomas mutters, but Miro can’t wrap his head around the words, still stuck on his actions.

“You’re here for me.” Miro whispers, cold dread flooding him. Thomas turns up his head, nose in the air like a hound. His eyes shine white. 

“Fear,” his voice rings in multiplicity sounding old and young, deep and dark. 

“Yes, for what I must do what I thought I never had to resort to.” Miroslav sinks his teeth into his thumb to draw blood. 

Thomas doesn’t move, taking in air through his slack mouth. The frenzy of bloodlust shining through his strange eyes as he rasps out,

“Blood.” 

Miroslav has just enough time to swipe his blood across the thin chain around his neck and feel the howling wind rush by him to just as quickly leave a vacuum of silence around them. Miro closes his eyes before he recites the words he’d stored in the back of his mind a lifetime ago.

“Cruz sacra sit mihi lux.” Bright light assaults the back of his eyelids as he hears a piercing shriek before it all disappears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone have any guesses on Thomas yet? Will the hunters in Rome figure out anything? Is Miro the most bad ass priest in Poland? Throw a comment down below on your theories.


	4. quattuor

“That should’ve killed you.” Miro has been confining his spare time to holy ground in case Thomas had more friends to come after him. It wasn’t entirely surprising that he was whole and hale standing just outside of where the church property ended. It _was_ disappointing, having to use the one-off weapon entailed to him without the desired result.

“It would’ve,” Thomas nods in acknowledgement of his precarious demise. “If I weren’t what I am.”

Miro frowned. Clues within clues and nothing had turned up. Nothing from the Sanctum nor from his own records, but he had figured out why Robert had been so familiar in searching for anything unusual cases in the area in the historical archives.

“You said you made Robert.” He starts cautiously, watching Thomas’ grin widen in delight. 

“You’re resourceful, Hunter, and what did you find in your quest?” It was an ugly taunt in the face of his own mystery. 

“His bones were found in the Vistula over 80 years ago. They suspected he drowned but he was an athlete in his prime. They ruled it as a suicide without evidence to the contrary. The bones were strange.” He wavers, unable to stop looking for some indication of truth, but Thomas doesn’t show anything, doesn’t feel anything at the words.

“Yellow and oily as if they were boiled to be eaten.” He bows his head, quietly lamenting whatever choices Robert Lewandowski had made to end up the way that he did. 

“I only made him as he wanted to be.” Thomas offers as consolation as if he knew what compassion lay in his heart. Miro looks up finished with the silent prayer, holding back the contempt he held for the cheap words.

“No one wants their soul to be tainted by darkness.” 

“Some don’t have a choice. Darkness is in every mortal soul. It is why you and your brethren strive so hard to stay in the light and stalk the night, Hunter. Should I take my turn at you now?” 

Thomas curls his hand around the top of the fence as if tempted to vault it. There is no smoke or pain, but Miro hadn’t blessed the wooden planks with anything special. They were special only for the memory of his father and he working to finish the perimeter summers ago when he was still a young man.

“I’m not a hunter.” Miro had never considered himself as such.

“A leopard cannot change its spots.” Thomas’ mouth curls into a sneer. “Your little trinket proves it.” 

“It was my father’s.” The cross had been passed down but the chain he had gotten in Rome. Miro hadn’t known for certain that it would even work as he had never given it over to the Order nor the Sanctum to check over. Using Saint’s blood for a _trinket_ was akin to blasphemy.

“Your father, a journeyman, a carpenter turned holy man, much like your beloved Son. You followed in his work, but Rome changed you or was it the possession of little Marta that did it? Either way, you have quite a record among my brothers. Successful exorcisms are so very rare. You should be very proud of yourself.” Thomas claps sardonically.

Miro stiffens, evidently he had not been the only one digging up the past. 

“Pride is a sin. I only thank our Father in Heaven that those innocent souls were spared.”

Thomas’ face contorts hideously at the mention of God 

“And there is no room in your heart for such things, is there. What a struggle, to be so untouchable.” His eyes glitter dangerously, ravenously fastened on Miro’s form.

“Your colleagues aren’t so pious, you know. Buffon is with a boy barely half his age and Candreva-”

“They’re good men, and that is no business of mine.” Miro cuts him off. Whatever their faults, he knew he could trust them and they trusted him in return. The Order wasn’t for men who hadn’t faced their own shadows. They fought the darkness wielding their own torment.

Thomas caressed the fence as if petting an animal, trailing fingers across the pointed tips. 

“Tell me, do you covet their happiness or do you think this is your destiny, to be alone?” He watches him from under his eyelashes.

Miro’s breath gets caught in his throat. 

“No,” he whispers. “No, I am happy for their happiness. I lack nothing within God’s wisdom.”

Thomas lets go of the fence, moving back towards the road, a peculiarly tight smile on his face. 

“Surely, loneliness is not a sin.” He sweeps into an exaggerated bow farewell before turning into thin air. Miroslav jerks like a puppet with its strings cut off, doubling over with pain, gasping out as his knees finally give into weakness, shaking uncontrollably until he is forced to kneel on the grass. 

“God,” He pleads, white knuckled in wordless agony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> homestretch y'all. very dramatic. I predict only a few more chapters.


	5. quīnque

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> real life was a shitshow and i forgot how to write for a couple of months. unedited words ahead.
> 
> WARNINGS: non-consensual kissing, general demon shenanigans.

His prayers aren’t answered. 

Miro hadn’t thought about Marta in a long time. The case that made him search for answers in Rome was a painful one. The girl had only been eight years old, bound to a bed, stinking of sickness and devilry. There was no saving the little soul from the demon inhabiting her. Miroslav had been shaken as his father dealt with the spirit and delivered the body back to her parents. 

The demon had a rasping laugh at odds with such a young face. It had mocked and swore at his father but didn’t provoke Miro, didn’t even acknowledge him when he was in the room.

Except once, hours into the exorcism.

“Bait, you are bait, a slimy little worm.” Her voice caught oddly on the syllables, her body heaving and contorting. “Who wins when you catch him, the fish or the fisherman?” Her gasps were wet with pain.

His father doesn’t stop his intonation until the demon bursts forth from the little girl's body in a wave of darkness, mouth slack.

Miro thought of that taunt now, as he lay in bed.

He didn't know who won between the fish or the fisherman but he knew the bait would lose every single time the line was cast and the fish was caught. The fisherman could be of good temperament or he could be fishing out of survival. There were complexities when it came to men and their actions. 

The fish only wanted to be fed.

He woke up from a fitful sleep with ringing ears, head buzzing with white noise. The sky was still dark and in the corner of his bedroom, something watched him with bright eyes shining like a lighthouse in the shadows.

His limbs don't respond to his panic. His eyes can only watch as a coiled mass, denser than shadow shifts in time with the eyes getting closer to the bed.

**I got bored of waiting.** It says and it speaks with Thomas’ voice.

**I left so many clues for your friends in Rome, hoping they would tell you, to make this more of a grand entrance, you see. But I guess they are too busy to lend you a hand.** Miro doesn’t see a mouth or a maw, nothing was discernible in the darkness that shaped the demon. It moved unnaturally, slithering without touching the ground. 

_How are you here?_ He tries to speak, but his lips don't move. His voice sounds far away, the buzzing louder and more insistent than his thoughts.

**That's the wrong question. You already know the answer.** It replies with disappointment. **I'm not going to sit on you like an imp on its first assignment. You're wasting time.** Miro's head got clearer, the paralysis feeling more manageable even as his heart still raced.

_Why are you here?_ It comes out stronger now. Thomas tsks before something waves out of the shadows by his side. He hears dripping.

**Now you pick the question with the longest answer. Still not the right one, Miro.**

_Why_ , he strains out, feeling lightheaded. If Thomas wanted him to ask the obvious, he would refuse. 

**For you, because hallowed ground doesn't apply to bodies, no matter what your doctrine says. You still haven't figured anything out and I'm tired of waiting and waiting and I've waited for too long. I've been patient, waiting, always waiting, until I finally found you. We were made in an instant and I fell for millennia, but you, I knew of you the moment I was cast out. The fire was nothing compared to the want that cleaved me into two.**

It hovered like fog, voice trembling with anger that echoed into his very bones. Its luminous eyes stared without life.

**One last cosmic joke, befitting of a father.**

Miro distantly felt his legs, pins and needles and cold, as his terror mounted.

**Do you know what I am now, priest. Can you figure it out.** It whispers almost tenderly, mood whipping back and forth in extremes. 

_A devil._ His fingers curl.

**A prince** , it corrects before laughing, the massive coil of him twisting with delight. **Now it is time for you to wake up.** It lunges like a snake, smothering Miro until all he can see is endless black. It doesn't have a mouth but he feels the press of heat, wet then dry, pouring itself against his lips until he's choking, gasping without air, lungs on fire.

He wakes up with a panicked yell, arms up in aborted motion to claw his way through smoke. He drops back down, shaking with adrenaline and fear, wondering if that is how possession starts: with darkness funneling into you until you cease to be.

His morning prayer doesn't settle his nerves so he studies, knowing that everything he seeks is in his grasp. 

"Jupp, what do you know of the princes of hell?" He asks in a rush of words.

"There are very few good afternoons in retirement. Always filled with mysterious phone calls that are too urgent for an old man like myself. I didn't think I would ever hear you on the other end of the line like this, Miro." Jupp was a safehouse, a bridge between his old life and the new. His father had never trusted the Order, but Jupp had been mired in this life before the Order called him in and he'd survived long after the Order expected him to do so.

"If not good then afternoon, Jupp." He sighs out, giving in to the request easily. 

"Is this a Holy mission or a personal interest?" Jupp asks with light suspicion in his tone.

"I'm retired. It can only be personal." Miro winces at the word, looking out of the window curtains for a sign of being watched. 

"You're truly retired when the Order doesn't take your calls. B and C know that, and Allegri always wanted you to be more than an exorcist on call." Jupp has always had the notion that Miro could do better than liaison with the Order.

"The princes, Jupp, my career prospects for another time." 

"What is it you want to know, there's lore enough to fill a tome or two. Seven in total, each with a dominion and a nasty amount of power over the lesser breed of demons. They can act as generals for the greatest of Evils. Aquinas was the head scholar on the Princes. Their names are trickier to pin down of course, much debate over that. There's Ba'al or Beezalbub and Mammon..." He can hear Jupp flipping through a book, pages surely older than Jupp and him combined. 

The names wouldn't matter. Miro didn't know which would one Thomas would be. 

"Their dominions would give me a better chance of recognizing what I'm looking for." He knows it to be true, his gut instinct leading him in the right direction.

"They mostly deal with sins, but there are other accounts that speculate on the origins of these devils," Jupp pauses. "Miro, why are you looking into this?" 

He swallows heavily, closing his eyes for a brief moment, but he can't say the words, can't explain.

"After, I'll tell you after. The dominions, please." He urges him to continue.

Jupp clears his throat, "As I was saying, if we hold these accounts to be true, the higher order of demons were once part of the heavenly host, as such, the ones who fell with Satan from the first sphere of angels are the most powerful of these Princes. According to this, they hold power over the very nature of the world and its elements. It seems to be a curse of sorts, the writing is very fanciful for the 16th century." He grumbles out loud.

The elements, the dripping, the brine, it was all there for Miro to puzzle out.

"Who holds dominion over water?" He scrubs at his eyes as Jupp hums over his book.

"Leviathan." 

"I don't understand. You've handled one of those beasts before." And it had not come in the guise of a mortal. A leviathan was akin to a kraken or a sea serpent, a giant monster from the seas.

"No, not _a_ leviathan. _The_ leviathan. The first and only hellmouth."

Loneliness isn't a sin. He remembers Thomas saying the words, something real and familiar flashing across his face before the mocking settled in. 

"That's not a name." His hands start to tremble.

"It's not." Jupp agrees, "It doesn't have one. The leviathan is primordial. Miro, tell me what's going on." It isn't a request.

He wants to laugh, but he fears it would sound too much like sobbing. 

"It started with the pfennigs," He begins his tale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END. FOR NOW?
> 
> So, as I was frantically trying to figure out how exactly this was going to go (the plot was seriously non-existent when I started this fic) I realized I wrote myself into a corner with how staunchly against the D(emon) Miro was, and my end goal was banging, but all you got was spiritual hooplah. Sorry. Anyway, I definitely realized it would take muuuuch longer to explore this whole 'verse and weaken Miro to temptation. Thus, I'm planning this out to be a series, so think of this as the season finale cliffhanger.
> 
> As of now, I'm planning a standalone look into Thomas (with more angel/demon lore), a flashback to Miro's hunting days (with Jupp? with the Order? idk) and the temptation of Miro continued. 
> 
> questions, comments are welcome. what/who would you like to see more of.


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